Kitabı oku: «Louisiana Lou. A Western Story», sayfa 7

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De Launay stared at the floor with dull eyes.

“What would you expect of a légionnaire?” he muttered.

“Nothing!” she cried, angrily. “Nothing from the légionnaire! But, in the name of God, cannot one expect more than this from the man who wears the medaille militaire, the grand cross of the legion, who won a colonelcy in Champagne, a brigade at Verdun, a division at the Chemin des Dames, and who, as all know, should have had an army corps after the Balkan campaign? From such a man as that, from him, monsieur, one expects everything!”

De Launay twisted the unfortunate hat in his hands and made no reply for some minutes. Solange sat on the bed, one knee crossed over the other and her chin resting in her hand, supported on her elbow. Her head was also bent toward the floor.

“Mademoiselle,” said De Launay, at last, “I think you have guessed the trouble with me.” His manner had reverted to that of his rank and class, and she looked up in instant reaction to it. “I am all that you say except what is good. There is no doubt of that. I have been a soldier for nineteen years; have made it the work of my life, in fact. I know nothing else – except, perhaps, a little of a passing, obsolete trade of this fading West you see around you. I had hoped to win – had won, I thought, place and distinction in that profession. You know what happened. Perhaps I did not deserve more. Perhaps it was necessary to reduce us all. Perhaps I was wrong in despairing. But I had won my way by effort, mademoiselle, that exhausted me. I was too tired to take up again the task of battering my way up through the remaining ranks.

“There was nothing left to me. There is nothing for me to do. There is no one who can use me unless it be some petty state which needs mercenaries. I have served my purpose in the world. Why should I not waste the rest of my time?”

Solange nodded. “Then what you need is an object?” she said, reflectively. “Work?” she asked.

He shook his head. “I have no need of money. And why should I work, otherwise? I know nothing of trade, and there are others who need the rewards of labor more than I.”

“Philanthropy – service?”

At this he grinned. “I am not a sentimentalist, but a soldier. As for service – I served France until she had no further use for me.”

“Marriage; a family?”

He laughed, now. “I am married. As for the love that is said to mitigate that relation, am I the sort of man a woman would care for?”

Solange straightened up, and then rose from the bunk. She came and stood before him.

“If neither love, ambition nor money will stir you,” she said. “Still, you may find an incentive to serve. There is chivalry.”

“I’m no troubadour.”

“Will you serve me?” she asked abruptly. He looked at her in surprise.

“Am I not serving you?”

“You are – after your own fashion – which I do not like. I wish your service – need it. But not this way.”

He nodded slowly. “I will serve you – in any way you wish,” he said.

Solange smiled under the veil, her mouth curving into beautiful lines.

“That is better. I shall need you, monsieur. You cannot, it is clear, serve me effectively by being thrown into jail for months. I must find the mine and the man who killed my father before that.”

De Launay shook his head. “You expect to find the mine and the man, after nineteen years?”

“I expect to make the attempt,” she replied, calmly. “It is in the hands of God, my success. Somehow, I feel that I shall succeed, at least in some measure, but the same premonition points to you as one who shall make that success possible. I do not know why that is.”

“Premonition!” said De Launay, doubtfully. “Still – from Morgan la fée, even a premonition – ”

The shrouding mask was turned upon him with an effect of question as he paused.

“Is entitled to respectful consideration,” he ended. He sat thoughtfully a minute, his throbbing head making mental action difficult. “I see no hope of tracing the man – but one. Have you that bullet, mademoiselle?”

She took it out of the hand bag, shivering a little as she handed it to him.

“It is common – a thirty caliber, such as most hunters use. Yet it is all the clew you possess. As for the mine, there seems to be only one hope, which is, to retrace as closely as possible, the route taken by your father before he was shot. May I keep this?”

She nodded her assent, and he put it in his pocket. Solange was relieved to be rid of it.

“And now,” he added, “I must get out of here.”

CHAPTER X
THE GET-AWAY

“If you need money – to pay the fine,” began Solange, doubtfully. He shook his head.

“I have a fancy to do this in my own way; the old-time way,” he said. “As for money, you will have need of all you possess. The cowboy, Sucatash, is a type I know. You may take a message to him for me, and I think he will not refuse to help.”

He gave her rapidly whispered instructions, her quick mind taking them in at once.

“And you,” he finished, “when you are ready to start, will gather your outfit at Wallace’s ranch near Willow Spring. From there is only one way that you can go to follow your father’s trail. He must have come out of the Esmeraldas through Shoestring Cañon, therefore you must go into them that way. I will be there when you come.”

Solange turned to the door and he bowed to her. She shook the grating and called for the turnkey. As she heard him coming she swung round and, with a smile, held out her hand to the soldier. His sallow face flushed as he took it. Her hand clung to his a moment and then the door swung open and she was gone.

De Launay took the bullet from his pocket and held it in his hand. He sat on his bunk and weighed the thing reflectively, balancing it on his palm. It was just such a bullet as might have been shot from any one of a hundred rifles, a bullet of which nothing of the original shape remained except about a quarter of an inch of the butt.

He wondered if, after nineteen years, there remained any one who had even been present when French Pete was found dying.

As for the mine, that was even more hopeless. No one had seriously attempted any prolonged search for the murderer, he assumed, knowing the region as it had been. Homicides were not regarded as seriously as in later days and a Basco sheep-herder’s murder would arouse little interest. The mine, however, was a different thing, as he knew by the fact that even recent arrivals had heard of it. It was certain that, throughout all these years there had been many to search for it and the treasure it was supposed to hold. Yet none had found it.

Solange’s premonition made him smile tolerantly. Still, he was pledged to the search, and he would go through with it. They would not find it, of course, but there might be some way in which he could make up the disappointment to her. He thought he could understand the urge that had led her on the ridiculous quest. A young, pretty, but portionless girl, with just enough money to support life in France for a few years, hopeless of marriage in a country where the women outnumbered the men by at least a million, would have a bleak future before her. He could guess that her high, proud spirit would rebel, on the one hand, at the prospect of pinching poverty and ignoble work and, on the other, from the alternative existence of the demimondaine.

Here, in America, she might have a chance. He could see to it that she did have a chance. With those eyes and that hair and her voice, the stage would open its arms to her, and acting was a recognized and respectable profession. There might be other opportunities, also.

But the vendetta she would have to drop. In the Basses Pyrénées one might devote a life to hunting vengeance, but it wouldn’t do in the United States. If she found the man, by some freak of chance, what would she do with him? To expect to convict him after all these years was ridiculous, and it was not likely that he would confess. Though she might be certain, the only thing left to her would be the taking of the law into her own hands; and that would not do. He did not doubt her ability or her willingness to kill the man. He knew that she would do it, and he knew that she must not be allowed to do it. He shuddered to think of her imprisoned in some penitentiary, her bright hair cropped and those fathomless eyes looking out on the sun through stone walls and barred windows; her delicate body clothed in rough, shapeless prison garments. If there was to be any killing, she must not do it.

She would insist on vengeance! Very well, he had promised to serve her; he had no particular object in life; he was abundantly able to kill; he would do her killing for her.

Having settled this to his satisfaction and feeling a certain complacent pleasure in the thought that, if the impossible happened, he could redeem himself in her eyes by an act that would condemn him in the eyes of every one else, he lay down on his bunk and went to sleep again.

In the morning he was aroused by the turnkey and brought out of his cell. A couple of officers took charge of him and led him from the jail to the street, across it and down a little way to the criminal court building. Here he was taken into a large room just off the courtroom, to await his preliminary hearing.

The rest was almost ridiculously simple. He had had no plan, beyond a vague one of breaking from his guardians when he was led back to the jail. But he formed a new one almost as soon as he had seated himself in the room where the prisoners were gathered.

He was placed on a long bench, the end of which was near a door leading to the corridor of the building. A door opposite led into the dock. A number of prisoners were seated there and two men in uniform formed a guard. One of them spent practically all his time glancing through the door, which he held on a crack, into the courtroom.

The other was neither alert nor interested. The officer who had brought De Launay, and who, presumably, was to make the charge against him, remained, while his companion departed.

Among those gathered in the room were several relatives or friends of prisoners, lawyers, and bondsmen, who went from one to another, whispering their plans and proposals. One, a bulbous-nosed, greasy individual, sidled up to him and suggested that he could furnish bail, for a consideration.

De Launay’s immediate guard, at this moment, said something to the uniformed policeman who sat near the center of the room. The other glanced perfunctorily in De Launay’s direction and nodded, and the man stepped out into the hall.

De Launay whispered an intimation that he was interested in the bail suggestion. He arose and led the bondsman off to one side, near the outer door, and talked with him a few moments. He suggested that the man wait until they discovered what the bail would be, and said he would be glad to accept his services. He had money which had not been taken from him when he was searched.

The bondsman nodded his satisfaction at netting another victim and strolled away to seek further prey. De Launay calmly turned around, opened the outer door and walked into the corridor.

He walked rapidly to the street entrance, out to the sidewalk, and down the street. At the first corner he turned. Then he hurried along until he saw what he was looking for. This was Sucatash, lounging easily against a lamp-post while De Launay’s horse, saddled and equipped, stood with head hanging and reins dangling just before him at the curb.

A close observer would have noticed that a pair of spurs hung at the saddle horn and that the saddle pockets bulged. But there were no close observers around.

De Launay came up to the horse while, as yet, there had been not the slightest indication of any hue and cry after him. This he knew could obtain for only a short time, but it would be sufficient.

Sucatash, against the lamp-post, lolled negligently and rolled a cigarette. He did not even look at De Launay, but spoke out of a corner of his mouth.

“How’d you make it, old-timer?”

“Walked out,” said the other, dryly.

“Huh? Well, them blue bellies are right bright, now. You’ll find pack hosses and an outfit at the spring west of the Lazy Y. Know where it is?”

De Launay nodded as he felt the cinch of the horse’s saddle.

“But how the deuce will you get them there? It’s nearly ninety miles.”

“We got a telephone at pa’s ranch,” said Sucatash, complacently. “Better hit the high spots. There’s a row back there, now.”

De Launay swung into the saddle. “See you at Shoestring, this side the Crater,” he said, briefly. “Adios!”

“So long,” said Sucatash, indifferently. De Launay spurred the horse and took the middle of the road on a run. Sucatash looked after him reflectively.

“That hombre can ride a whole lot,” he remarked. “He’s a sure-enough, stingin’ lizard, I’ll say. Walked out! Huh!”

A few moments after De Launay had rounded a corner and disappeared with his ill-gotten habiliments, excited policemen and citizens came rushing to where Sucatash, with nothing on his mind but his hat, strolled along the sidewalk.

“Seen an escaped prisoner? Came this way. Wasn’t there a horse here a minute ago?” The questions were fired at him in rapid succession. Sucatash was exasperatingly leisurely in answering them.

“They was a hoss here, yes,” he drawled.

“Was it yours?”

“Not that I know of,” answered Sucatash. “Gent came along and forked it. I allowed it was hisn and so I didn’t snub him down none. Was he the gent you was lookin’ for?”

“Which way did he go?”

“He was headin’ south-southeast by no’th or thereabouts when I last seen him,” said Sucatash. “And he was fannin’ a hole plumb through the atmosphere.”

They left the unsatisfactory witness and rushed to the corner around which De Launay had vanished. Here they found a man or two who had seen the galloping horse and its rider. But, as following on foot was manifestly impossible, one of them rushed to a telephone while others ran back to get a police automobile and give chase.

De Launay, meanwhile, was riding at a hard pace through the outlying streets of the town, heading toward the south. The paved streets gave way to gravel roads, and the smoke of the factories hung in the air behind him. Past comfortable bungalows and well-kept lawns he rushed, until the private hedges gave place to barbed-wire fences, and the cropped grass to fields of standing stubble.

The road ran along above and parallel to the river, following a ridge. To one side of it the farms lay, brown and gold in their autumn vesture. At regular intervals appeared a house, generally of the stereotyped bungalow form.

De Launay had passed several of these when he noticed, from one ahead of him, several men running toward the road. He watched them, saw that they gesticulated toward the cloud of dust out of which he rode, and turned in his saddle to open the pockets back of the cantle. From one he drew belt and holster, sagging heavily with the pistol that filled it. From the other he pulled clips loaded with cartridges. Leaving the horse to run steadily on the road he strapped himself with the gun.

The men had reached the road and were lined up across it. One of them had a shotgun and others were armed with forks and rakes. They waved their weapons and shouted for him to stop. He calmly drew the pistol and pulled his horse down in the midst of them.

“Well?” he asked as they surged around him. The man with the shotgun suddenly saw the pistol and started to throw the gun to his shoulder.

“We got him!” he yelled, excitedly.

“Got who?” asked De Launay. “You pointing that gun at me? Better head it another way.”

His automatic was swinging carelessly at the belligerent farmer. The man was not long in that country, but he was long enough to know the difference between a shotgun and an automatic forty-five. He lost his nerve.

“We’re lookin’ for an escaped convict,” he muttered. “Be you the feller?”

“Keep on looking,” said De Launay, pleasantly. “But drop that gun and those pitchforks. What do you mean by holding up a peaceable man on the highroads?”

The rattled farmer and his cohorts were bluffed and puzzled. The automatic spoke in terms too imperative to be disregarded. Capturing escaped prisoners was all very well, but when it involved risks such as this they preferred more peaceful pursuits. The men backed away, the farmer let the shotgun drop to the ground.

“Pull your freight!” said De Launay, shortly. They obeyed.

He whirled his horse and resumed his headlong flight. He had gained fifty yards when the farmer, who had run back to his gun, fired it after him. The shot scattered too much to cause him any uneasiness. He laughed back at them and fled away.

Other places had been warned also, but De Launay rushed past them without mishap. The automatic was a passport which these citizens were eager to honor, and which the police had not taken into account. To stop an unarmed fugitive was one thing, but to interfere with one who bristled with murder was quite another.

A new peril was on his trail, however. He soon heard the distant throb of a motor running with the muffler open. Looking back along the road, he could see the car as it rounded curves on top of the ridge. All too soon it was throbbing behind him and not half a mile away.

But he did not worry. Right ahead was a stone marker which he knew marked the boundary of Nevada. Long before the car could reach him he had passed it. He kept on for two or three hundred yards at the same pace while the car, forging up on him, was noisy with shouts and commands to stop. He slowed down to a trot and grinned at the men who stood in the car and pointed their revolvers at him. His pistol was dangling in his hand.

“You gents want me?” he asked, pleasantly. His former captor sputtered an oath.

“You’re shoutin’ we want you,” he cried. “Get off that horse and climb in here, you – ”

De Launay’s voice grew hard and incisive.

“You got a warrant for my arrest?”

“Warrant be hanged! You’re an escaped prisoner! Climb down before we let you have it!”

“That’s interesting. Where’s your extradition papers?”

The officer shrieked his commands and imprecations, waving his pistol. De Launay grinned.

“If you want to test the law, go ahead,” he said. “I’m in Nevada as you know very well. If you want to shoot, you may get me – but I can promise that I’ll get you, too. The first man of you that tightens a trigger will get his. Go to it!”

An officer who is on the right side of the law is thereby fortified and may proceed with confidence. If he is killed, his killer commits murder. But an officer who is on the wrong side of the law has no such psychological reënforcement. He is decidedly at a disadvantage. The policemen were courageous – but they faced a dilemma. If they shot De Launay, they would have to explain. If he shot them, it would be in self-defense and lawful resistance to an illegal arrest. Furthermore, there was something about the way he acted that convinced them of his intention and ability. There were only three of them, and he seemed quite confident that he could get them all before they could kill him.

The officer who had been his guardian thought of a way out.

“There’s a justice of the peace a mile ahead,” he said. “We’ll just linger with you until we reach him and get a warrant.”

“Suit yourselves,” said De Launay, indifferently. “But don’t crowd me too closely. Those things make my horse nervous.”

They started the car, but he galloped easily on ahead, turning in his saddle to watch them. They proceeded slowly, allowing him to gain about forty yards. The officer thought of shooting at him when he was not looking, but desisted when he discovered that De Launay seemed to be always looking.

They had proceeded only a short distance when De Launay, without warning, spurred his horse into a run, swinging him at the same time from side to side of the road. Turned in his saddle, he raised his hand and the staccato rattle of his automatic sounded like the roll of a drum. The startled officers fired and missed his elusive form. They had their aim disarranged by the sudden jolt and stoppage of the car. De Launay had shot the two front tires and a rear one to pieces.

The discomfited policemen saw him disappearing down the road in a cloud of dust from which echoed his mocking laugh and a chanted, jubilant verse that had not been heard in that region for nineteen years: